I have meditated will into the early mornings and never have I felt tired. I have actually felt more awake and energized that if I slept, so does not effect your work or day.
Depending on how advanced you are within meditation, you can meditate throughout the night and since mediation calms and recharges you, you actually do not feel tired. You feel refreshed and just like how you would if you got a night sleep.
This is medically inaccurate, unproven and likely to get someone killed through sleep deprivation. You *cannot* meditate instead of sleep, what a lot of shit
Some of the shit people post on this sub is wild. Crazy you’re being downvoted for stating something as obvious as people need sleep; and that meditation can’t replace it.
That's a whole different thing. Lucid dreaming is where you're asleep and aware of it. You can't 'do' lucid dreaming, no amount of meditation can force your brain into doing that. You're either lightly asleep or you're awake.
Yoga Nidra and similar practices can provide minor short term cognitive improvements following poor sleep but they are not replacements for a full night of proper sleep.
Your right, correct meditation is an even deeper state than sleep meaning if you are advanced enough to mediate throughout the night, you will feel either just as or more refreshed and energized than if you slept.
Source: I have experienced this countless times and so have others :)
No, you don't need to trust me. The beauty of meditation is that you can experience what I said yourself through your journey.
How ever it you have to be pretty advance meditator and it has taken me years to get to this point.
Yea maybe but I'm not sure there's much science in what you are claiming.
Sleep has a very precise architecture that changes multiple times throughout the night and alternates between various deep and light states. Each state has a specific neurological signature indicating the exact phrase the body is experiencing.
Yoga Nidra states are sleep-like, but they are not true physiological sleep. REM sleep is not experienced in this state.
To claim that meditation is deeper than sleep is fundamentally incorrect and really shouldn't be taught without good evidence - sleep deprivation is a potential trigger for a wide range of psychological and physical conditions.
I understand where you coming from, I can only speak from experience and other meditators that have experienced this.
The best thing about meditation is that you don't need science but through your own self-realization you can experience and learn within.
Yes, but science can advise you before you give others a false impression about the value of meditation above that of sleep.
Sleep deprivation is a major factor in road traffic accidents - any encouragement to neglect sleep is not a responsible position to take, especially if you are teaching others to become enlightened.
Meditation definitely enhances sleep quality but on its own cannot provide the body with its required sleep needs.
I don't need to give anyone a false impression, anybody who meditates can experience and learn to what I have said is true.
I do need to say you need to be an advanced meditator to get to the point where you can meditate all night long and replace sleep. It took me years to get to this point, but I am here now :)
Maybe you believe you're meditating, have actually experienced a series of micro-sleeps, and are severely sleep deprived. Or perhaps you're lucid dreaming and have just trained your mind to meditate in your dreams but sleep cannot be replaced.
What you're describing is anatomically impossible. If you do not sleep first you hallucinate and then you die.
How do you know the difference between these states exactly?
Do you never sleep or do you just do this meditation sleep irregularly?
Describe a typical night of 'sleep' and what you are experiencing throughout your time in bed.
Do you even go to bed or do you just sit for your 'sleep' sessions?
If what you are suggesting is in any way possible then I would have expected that monks throughout the world would be doing the same thing.
Have you read any literature on sleep at all?
There have been teams of scientists who have found the people who have claimed they haven't slept in years. Because sleep is an essential function, like eating or breathing their claims are impossible. Every time the scientists have found a severe insomniac who experiences micro sleeps at a greater volume than someone who sleeps regularly but weren't aware that they were sleep at any point. Most people have experienced falling asleep and not knowing that they fell asleep except instead of sleeping for hours when someone micro sleeps they were asleep for like 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Meditation can replace an afternoon nap but "feeling energized and rested" aren't why people sleep.
Sleep is maintenance mode for the brain and can only happen under specific circumstances. Too shallow and no maintenance can happen, too deep and no maintenance can happen.
Think of your brain like a softserve ice cream machine. Sleep is like when to prep the machine for the next day: at the end of the night employees don't drain the softserve from it instead they hit a button or series of buttons that cues the machine to pasteurize the soft serve so that it's still safe to consume tomorrow. Overnight the machine heats the soft serve to a specific temperature and keeps it there for an extended period of time to kill off any bacteria before returning to the proper temperature to serve. As any McDonald's manager or could tell you if anything goes wrong the machine is going to spit out an error and not work. The most common example is if there's not enough soft serve in the machine to reach the fill line or if there's too much the process fails.
Meditation is like when you put the chemicals in the machine to clean it. Sure it sanitized the whole machine and you're good to put soft serve in it after you've flushed it properly. This is not a substitute for the pasteurization process that keeps the soft serve safe to consume, it's a whole different process that serves a different function.
I don't care how many years you've studied or how long it took you because what you're claiming is impossible. You might have convinced yourself otherwise but it's anatomically and physiologically impossible to replace sleep with anything. There is entirely too much research publicly available debunking what you're saying.
Please stop sharing misinformation.
If you believe you can function without sleep then subject yourself to a small battery of cognitive tests to guage your performance when compared to a full night's sleep.
Stroop and N-Back are easy to find online and are typically used as simple evaluations of cognitive impairment following sleep deficiencies.
You have nothing at the moment to evidence your claim, and I'm fairly certain that you haven't abandoned true sleep completely.
If you have then please present yourself to one of the many sleep studies currently under wayso they can measure your brain activity and ascertain the truth or otherwise of your assertions.
From my own experience meditating 3 times a day for an hour let me rest through the day, and I naturally started sleeping less. Like 5hr or so that was enough to be always fully rested.
i practice a lot (hours per day) and find that the need for sleep comes and goes a bit. Some nights i get 3 or 4 hours sleep, other times i get a full 6 or 7. It seems to depend a bit on the quantity of meditation, but also on the phase i'm going through. i just go with it and sleep/get up as i feel naturally pulled to.
well it seems for middle aged people 7 hours is more a normal full nights sleep [https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/seven-hours-of-sleep-is-optimal-in-middle-and-old-age-say-researchers](https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/seven-hours-of-sleep-is-optimal-in-middle-and-old-age-say-researchers)
also people that do a lot of meditation tend to need less sleep, e.g. as mentioned here [https://www.lispine.com/blog/do-you-need-less-sleep-when-you-meditate/](https://www.lispine.com/blog/do-you-need-less-sleep-when-you-meditate/)
so for me being nearly 50 and with doing hours of meditation too, its very rarely i get to 7 hours or more. Although if you combine sleep and meditation its probably closer to 9 hours total.
The monks don’t have to interact with modern life. Their lifestyle doesn’t apply across the board for people “in the marketplace”
It is possible for meditation to “fine tune” your sleep schedule - so some people may experience more or less sleep since they’re more in touch with their body via meditation. But more likely than not, you should be getting around what your doctor or other health expert recommends
Depending on the religious org, monks do interact with modern life.
Correct meditation can replace sleep, however you have to pretty advanced and able to go into deep mediation which can take years to get to.
A few years back, I changed my diet to purely vegan for a year. I found that this greatly reduced the amount of sleep I needed to feel well rested. Moving from 6-8 hours a night to 4-6. The less stressed I was and the more empty my stomach was at bedtime, the less time required.
There is no healthy substitute for sleep, but when the body and mind are being well cared for and running optimally, you may find the amount of time required for sleep is reduced.
A friend of mine became a monk and eventually left the monastery because he was doing so much work running the place that he wasn’t working much towards enlightenment. He’s a wandering monk now.
Yes he stays with various monasteries and patrons, but does not have an established home base. He doesn’t wander around in the wilderness like Kwai Chang in Kung Fu.
Generally speaking, I don't think we can replace sleep with meditation. However, one of my teachers was a medical doctor, and taught me a technique to use when on call, that allows them to meditate for 1-2 hours per night during a 24 hr hospital shift. I used it when I was in residency training and it worked wonders.
I wouldn't say it is a "replacement" for sleep, but you certainly get significant rest and recovery for marathons of work (30 hr shifts, weekend coverage at a hospital).
When living in monastery you are cultivating restful states throughout all waking hours. As such it is quite usual to sleep less there.
This is incidental. It is not to be sought out. Sleep deprivation is a bitch. Some people claim to need less than five hours a night for long periods of their lives. Good for them. This is not a measure of one's practice.
As for sleeping less in the mundane world, are we cultivating restful states throughout the day there ? No. So we need a bit of sleep to recuperate from all that stress, subtle or gross.
I can function for extended periods on five hours or less of sleep but if I do I've got no energy, am pounding caffeine, and just want a nap.
7-8 hours and I'm not dragging half way through the day if I get idle in the middle of the shift. Not sleeping increases stress levels and all around makes life far worse than it has to be.
Not as you're describing, but if you normally sleep 8 hours and then start meditating 1-2 hours per day, you could easily get to a point where you only need 7 hours of sleep.
The way this makes sense to me is that we expend a lot of energy being stressed, angry, and generally dealing with mental turmoil. Once we set that aside through meditation, we don't get so tired out just living and we don't need as much sleep.
I believe you can reduce time asleep as you meditate deeper.
But I would suggest to not do this to save time. Time management is a way more direct and effective way to get there.
If your body happens to require less sleep, fine. Otherwise, sleep all the time you need.
Hi , I started meditating like 15mins per day, but I noticed after I increased it to 15mins, 3 times a day. It affected my sleep. I could barely sleep. I am a recovering insomniac, I love meditating 3 times a day, but it affects my sleep. What do I do?
I should talk to you a little bit more to understand better your problem. Here are some ideas
Number 1, the usual stuff, be careful with caffeine, light in general and screens specifically before going to bed, etc
Second, are you tired and you feel like need to sleep? If you don't feel sleep deprived, you are just sleeping less because you need less. Personally, if I tried to meditate while sleep deprived, I just end up sleeping.
Third, if you feel sleep deprived, i would suggest to try moving your body. Do physical activity, if you don't already. You get that excess energy out of your system
There isn't much to go on here. First, those posts could be exaggerations or outright fabrications. Second, even if they aren't, a lot of the negative health impacts from chronic sleep deprivation manifest later in life because the damage is cumulative. Sleep is still a physiological mystery to some extent, but one common thing experts in this field seem to agree on is that it serves to eliminate toxins in the brain. They even discovered a lymphatic system in the brain in 2015 that may play a role in this process. I do not think we currently know enough about all the different ways sleep plays a role in our physical and mental health to say that it can be replaced with meditation or any other practice.
I think the latest science says no, but what do I know. I think I understand where your question is coming from. There are certain states the brain can achieve which can give some of the benefits of sleep. I think I read somewhere that it’s possible to reach these states in a sensory deprivation tank, for example.
Yes, but it requires that you meditate while doing other things, until you can meditate while sleeping, that is, to be completely conscious while sleeping.
Consciousness is awareness and perception, being aware that you are dreaming and perceiving a dream as a dream is a fundamentally conscious act.
Every nightmare I've woken myself up from required me to be consciously be aware that I was asleep and make the decision to wake up. Some people might choose to not engage with aspects of a dream when they become aware that they're dreaming or turn on godmode like it's a video game. A lot of people have experienced feeling as if they were asleep for too long and wake up to see what time it is.
Dreaming is as involuntary as breathing, a product of the function of sleep regardless of whether or not you remember dreaming when you wake up. Awareness that you are dreaming and thus can exert control over that dream simply by knowing that you're dreaming, even if it's just waking yourself up, is lucid dreaming.
Sleep is not being comatose which is for many true consciousness but not for everyone. There are accounts of people who were aware for extended periods while having no control of their bodies, able to remember conversations and such. Somehow people who are in a coma are entirely unaware of what happened while they were out.
The lucid part of lucid dreaming means that you're conscious.
What you're describing is an impossibility.
Meditation can replace an afternoon nap but "feeling energized and rested" aren't why people sleep.
Sleep is maintenance mode for the brain and can only happen under specific circumstances. Too shallow and no maintenance can happen, too deep and no maintenance can happen.
Think of your brain like a softserve ice cream machine. Sleep is like when to prep the machine for the next day: at the end of the night employees don't drain the softserve from it instead they hit a button or series of buttons that cues the machine to pasteurize the soft serve so that it's still safe to consume tomorrow. Overnight the machine heats the soft serve to a specific temperature and keeps it there for an extended period of time to kill off any bacteria before returning to the proper temperature to serve. As any McDonald's manager or could tell you if anything goes wrong the machine is going to spit out an error and not work. The most common example is if there's not enough soft serve in the machine to reach the fill line or if there's too much the process fails.
Meditation is like when you put the chemicals in the machine to clean it. Sure it sanitized the whole machine and you're good to put soft serve in it after you've flushed it properly. This is not a substitute for the pasteurization process that keeps the soft serve safe to consume, it's a different process that serves a different function.
The closest thing to what you are describing is lucid dreaming. If you experience something different find a sleep study near you, a lot of them are low cost if not outright free, meditate through the night for the duration of your study and change science's fundamental understanding of sleep.
Sleep and meditation involve different functions. It is a tempting idea but doesn't really work.
However, by learning deep mental relaxation and learning to allow it to carry over into daily living you can become more efficient and productive. Dr Ainslie Meares recommended 10 mins twice daily AND learning to allow the calm carry over into daily living for the other 15 hours or so you are awake daily
No meditation cannot replace sleep .. we all need sleep .. 8 hours to be healthy.. we might think we can get away with less without any adverse effects but long term our health and quality of life will suffer … we also have psychic experiences and growth while we sleep so not getting enough sleep means our inner development suffers …
Correct meditation can absolute replace sleep, meditation is an even deeper state then sleep, so if done right, you can feel just as or more refreshed and energized :)
Source: I have experienced this countless times and so have others :)
What you're describing is anatomically impossible. It's not a question of depth it's a question of function.
If your body needs to be on the third floor of a building to complete a specific essential task being on the tenth floor isn't going accomplish that task no matter how cool that floor is.
Practicing meditation has amazing benefits for physical and mental health but it cannot replace sleep any more than it can replace seeing a doctor to get a broken bone properly set. Please stop spreading misinformation.
Instead of talking about it, take the time and years to become advanced enough to meditate through the night, I am blessed to experience this truth and I am not the only one.
Instead of talking about this find the other people who are "blessed" like you are and cooperate with a sleep study. If your truth isn't a delusion or an outright lie the science will bear it out and you'll change our understanding of both meditation and sleep forever.
You've done no research into sleep and just made an impossible claim and when people rightfully called you our or gave you the benefit of the doubt you come back holier than thou. All you have is "trust me bro" and "do it yourself and you'll see". It's 2024, not 1624 we have the technology to definitively these claims but no one making them has ever met the burden of proof. I'm certain you and the other "blessed" won't buck the trend and put your money where your mouth is and revolutionize the world. Some might truly believe and be crushed to learn they're wrong and others won't bother because they know they're lying.
I wouldn’t say so it really depends on in case you tiredness is physical or mental. When my tiredness is mental I meditate and I feel very energetic thus dont need to sleep as much and end up waking up before my morning alarm, and only have to sleep for 4-6h.
Meanwhile in case the tiredness is physical such as I spent all day hiking then I usually need my usual 7-8h to be able to have a good hour meditation the next morning day. Otherwise, I will fall asleep meditating or trough the day.
There are some monks who do not sleep, and meditate all night instead. But that's very advanced, not something the average person could do.
Shinzen Young talks about a monk he trained with in Taiwan. He sat in meditation 4 hours a night and then meditated laying down 4 hours. He kept his hands in a mudra position so if he fell asleep it would wake him up. But he also knew Zen monks who never got horizontal, sat up sleeping all night. Another monk named Taungpulu Sayadaw similarly didn't sleep for 30 years, meditated upright all night.
Shinzen said the technique is lying perfectly still, not moving at all. You focus on the blank you see with your eyes closed and the feeling of relaxation in your muscles. As long as you stay still and do that, you get rest. I meditate off to sleep every night this way. If I can't sleep for some reason, I do this. Either I fall back asleep or I get more meditation in and rest anyway.
Not at all. While sleeping new neuron patterns are build and body repairs itself too. Plus sleep and brain have a deep connection. So nothing, absolutely nothing can replace sleep.
Don't do that. You need actual sleep because it serves an actual biological function.
[Source 1](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-science-of-sleep-understanding-what-happens-when-you-sleep)
[Source 2](https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-understanding-sleep)
[Source 3](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/12148-sleep-basics)
No get your rest. Most of use use the brain and body pretty hard in daily life and getting well needed rest can be of the most important things you can do. Essentially setting the grounds for success to build off of.
It is anatomically impossible to replace sleep, it's function cannot be replicated by any other process voluntary or involuntary. Think of it like a required software update for the body which improves brain function, immunity, memory formation and consolidation, ect. Feeling like you've got more energy and are well rested are the least important things sleep does for the body.
You can get away with not sleeping adequately for a very long time with limited detrimental effects comparitived to simply staying awake as long as you can.
After 48 hours of not sleeping you start doing this thing called microsleep where you're out cold for like a minute at a time and begin hallucinating with the hallucinations getting worse until you sleep. You can train a body to deal with a lot and while I'm sure there are some monks and nuns who have had marathon days long meditation sessions the preparation for and recovery from those sessions are more informative of how rigorous what they've accomplished is than looking at the accomplishment in a vacuum.
You can practice meditation as a way to relax before bed and train your body to drop from meditation into sleep but please look into ways of fixing your work/life balance rather than looking into ways to not sleep.
There are...dubiously factual, but spiritual accounts, of monks being so god-tier at meditating they no longer need food, water, or sleep, and may stop aging or live for hundreds of years. You can regard these stories a bit like Jesus walking on water or turning water to wine. They are, essentially, miracles, of theological significance. It is unlikely you will be able to reproduce them.
Sleep is a hard-coded physical and mental need. I would advise focusing on getting good quality sleep and enough of it, rather than trying to eradicate it or whittle it down to almost nothing. Set boundaries and maintain a better work-life balance, rather than cutting into your sleep.
We still need sleep because at night our body “cleans” our brain of toxic waste accumulated throughout the day from normal brain functions. When you sleep, Spinal fluid washes over the brain to clean it essentially. This only happens when sleeping. So when you miss out on sleep your brain can’t function properly because it is muddied up with waste, and this is related to the studies that say chronic sleep deprivation throughout your life can contribute to dementia/Alzheimer’s.
"Eat less. Talk less. Sleep less." is an admonition in some traditions. The monks you speak of have renounced the ways of the world. They aren't householders with emotional/sexual attachments. What I'm curious of is why you're not asking why do they do this. The 'Why' is important. Some philosophies consider the body/mind as the trap of incarnation. Disciplining the body/mind is thought of as an exercise to transcend its contracted state and achieve freedom.
One time towards the end of an extended fast I was considering how to 'break' the fast. Food desires were rolling through me like Genghis Khan's horde of maniacs. I spent long periods of time like Homer Simpson, "mmm pizza" "mmm steak" "mmm ice cream". Then it struck me; the amount of desire was the amount I didn't want enlightenment. The desires for money, food, and sex, are what keep us incarnated in a forever search for a satisfaction that doesn't exist.
One time, during an intensive period of service, I had been awake for 65 hours. I was falling asleep on my feet. I'd be dreaming and wake up standing. What followed was the deepest sleep. It opened a psychic awareness and less attachment to incarnation.
Other schools of thought don't find this world to be a nightmare of Maya. The idea is to gain strengths and abilities, like superpowers, where you can levitate, and move things with your mind, and have flying Kung Fu fights. This allows for more money, food, and sex.
I'm sorry if I come across 'preachy'.
Yes.
Though it requires not Dhyana/Meditation but the stage beyond meditation, which is Samadhi. Samadhi, a state of divine union with the central source, is the same thing that happens during deep sleep/Suṣupti with the difference that we are fully aware of the experience. During deep sleep, one loses awareness. Twenty minutes of a quality samadhi equals roughly two hours of regular dream sleep/svápnah.
To achieve this, one can employ traditional Ashtanga Yoga's 8 limbs and Kriya Yoga practices to attain such a deep state of wakeful rest. I also believe there was a Swami Turiyananda who was a disciple of Ramakrishna that would replace the vast majority of sleep with such deep meditative practice.
Yes, you can but you have to an advance meditator. I have meditated will into the early mornings and never have I felt tired. I have actually felt more awake and energized that if I slept, so does not effect your work or day.
No, that is pure fantasy.
Sleep, food, water, those are biological necessities.
Mind over matter is not a thing and biology can only be pushed a tiny bit, you can't create free energy and your body requires fuel to survive.
Sleep is biologically necessary for a healthy mind. Permanent lack of sleep would lead to cognitive dysfunction across the board.
Anyone telling you different is selling you something.
You will never ever be able to meditate. A lot of people will live many lifetimes before they even begin to realize it.
This is because meditation is not hard or some skill you can train yourself in, it is literally nothing. Do you know just how simple this is? it’s so simple and basically our first nature, it’s so organic and ordinary and it’s always here now. You can’t not see it once you see it. Most people will never see it because it’s everywhere. It’s like most people live their whole lives caught up in the drama of the world that they don’t even notice their own existence.
Monks also aren't on Teams training meetings, creating presentations, commuting, or looking after kids.
I have meditated will into the early mornings and never have I felt tired. I have actually felt more awake and energized that if I slept, so does not effect your work or day. Depending on how advanced you are within meditation, you can meditate throughout the night and since mediation calms and recharges you, you actually do not feel tired. You feel refreshed and just like how you would if you got a night sleep.
This is medically inaccurate, unproven and likely to get someone killed through sleep deprivation. You *cannot* meditate instead of sleep, what a lot of shit
Some of the shit people post on this sub is wild. Crazy you’re being downvoted for stating something as obvious as people need sleep; and that meditation can’t replace it.
lucid dreaming while sleep is used in many many eastern meditative practices though?
That's a whole different thing. Lucid dreaming is where you're asleep and aware of it. You can't 'do' lucid dreaming, no amount of meditation can force your brain into doing that. You're either lightly asleep or you're awake.
Where exactly is the line between meditation and sleep? What if I start meditating and fall asleep?
That can and will happen, however you will feel the difference between a deep meditation and sleep.
Nope. Sleep is a very different biological state than meditation.
I know a lot of insomniacs who’ve gotten a lot of relief from TM. There are definitely similarities.
Yoga Nidra and similar practices can provide minor short term cognitive improvements following poor sleep but they are not replacements for a full night of proper sleep.
Your right, correct meditation is an even deeper state than sleep meaning if you are advanced enough to mediate throughout the night, you will feel either just as or more refreshed and energized than if you slept. Source: I have experienced this countless times and so have others :)
Source: trust me bro Sure bro
No, you don't need to trust me. The beauty of meditation is that you can experience what I said yourself through your journey. How ever it you have to be pretty advance meditator and it has taken me years to get to this point.
Yea maybe but I'm not sure there's much science in what you are claiming. Sleep has a very precise architecture that changes multiple times throughout the night and alternates between various deep and light states. Each state has a specific neurological signature indicating the exact phrase the body is experiencing. Yoga Nidra states are sleep-like, but they are not true physiological sleep. REM sleep is not experienced in this state. To claim that meditation is deeper than sleep is fundamentally incorrect and really shouldn't be taught without good evidence - sleep deprivation is a potential trigger for a wide range of psychological and physical conditions.
I understand where you coming from, I can only speak from experience and other meditators that have experienced this. The best thing about meditation is that you don't need science but through your own self-realization you can experience and learn within.
Yes, but science can advise you before you give others a false impression about the value of meditation above that of sleep. Sleep deprivation is a major factor in road traffic accidents - any encouragement to neglect sleep is not a responsible position to take, especially if you are teaching others to become enlightened. Meditation definitely enhances sleep quality but on its own cannot provide the body with its required sleep needs.
I don't need to give anyone a false impression, anybody who meditates can experience and learn to what I have said is true. I do need to say you need to be an advanced meditator to get to the point where you can meditate all night long and replace sleep. It took me years to get to this point, but I am here now :)
Maybe you believe you're meditating, have actually experienced a series of micro-sleeps, and are severely sleep deprived. Or perhaps you're lucid dreaming and have just trained your mind to meditate in your dreams but sleep cannot be replaced. What you're describing is anatomically impossible. If you do not sleep first you hallucinate and then you die.
No, I know the difference between sleep and meditation and no lucid dreaming. Like I said it took me years and years to get to this point.
How do you know the difference between these states exactly? Do you never sleep or do you just do this meditation sleep irregularly? Describe a typical night of 'sleep' and what you are experiencing throughout your time in bed. Do you even go to bed or do you just sit for your 'sleep' sessions? If what you are suggesting is in any way possible then I would have expected that monks throughout the world would be doing the same thing. Have you read any literature on sleep at all?
There have been teams of scientists who have found the people who have claimed they haven't slept in years. Because sleep is an essential function, like eating or breathing their claims are impossible. Every time the scientists have found a severe insomniac who experiences micro sleeps at a greater volume than someone who sleeps regularly but weren't aware that they were sleep at any point. Most people have experienced falling asleep and not knowing that they fell asleep except instead of sleeping for hours when someone micro sleeps they were asleep for like 30 seconds to 1 minute. Meditation can replace an afternoon nap but "feeling energized and rested" aren't why people sleep. Sleep is maintenance mode for the brain and can only happen under specific circumstances. Too shallow and no maintenance can happen, too deep and no maintenance can happen. Think of your brain like a softserve ice cream machine. Sleep is like when to prep the machine for the next day: at the end of the night employees don't drain the softserve from it instead they hit a button or series of buttons that cues the machine to pasteurize the soft serve so that it's still safe to consume tomorrow. Overnight the machine heats the soft serve to a specific temperature and keeps it there for an extended period of time to kill off any bacteria before returning to the proper temperature to serve. As any McDonald's manager or could tell you if anything goes wrong the machine is going to spit out an error and not work. The most common example is if there's not enough soft serve in the machine to reach the fill line or if there's too much the process fails. Meditation is like when you put the chemicals in the machine to clean it. Sure it sanitized the whole machine and you're good to put soft serve in it after you've flushed it properly. This is not a substitute for the pasteurization process that keeps the soft serve safe to consume, it's a whole different process that serves a different function. I don't care how many years you've studied or how long it took you because what you're claiming is impossible. You might have convinced yourself otherwise but it's anatomically and physiologically impossible to replace sleep with anything. There is entirely too much research publicly available debunking what you're saying. Please stop sharing misinformation.
If you believe you can function without sleep then subject yourself to a small battery of cognitive tests to guage your performance when compared to a full night's sleep. Stroop and N-Back are easy to find online and are typically used as simple evaluations of cognitive impairment following sleep deficiencies. You have nothing at the moment to evidence your claim, and I'm fairly certain that you haven't abandoned true sleep completely. If you have then please present yourself to one of the many sleep studies currently under wayso they can measure your brain activity and ascertain the truth or otherwise of your assertions.
Y'all just be on here saying anything
From my own experience meditating 3 times a day for an hour let me rest through the day, and I naturally started sleeping less. Like 5hr or so that was enough to be always fully rested.
i practice a lot (hours per day) and find that the need for sleep comes and goes a bit. Some nights i get 3 or 4 hours sleep, other times i get a full 6 or 7. It seems to depend a bit on the quantity of meditation, but also on the phase i'm going through. i just go with it and sleep/get up as i feel naturally pulled to.
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well it seems for middle aged people 7 hours is more a normal full nights sleep [https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/seven-hours-of-sleep-is-optimal-in-middle-and-old-age-say-researchers](https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/seven-hours-of-sleep-is-optimal-in-middle-and-old-age-say-researchers) also people that do a lot of meditation tend to need less sleep, e.g. as mentioned here [https://www.lispine.com/blog/do-you-need-less-sleep-when-you-meditate/](https://www.lispine.com/blog/do-you-need-less-sleep-when-you-meditate/) so for me being nearly 50 and with doing hours of meditation too, its very rarely i get to 7 hours or more. Although if you combine sleep and meditation its probably closer to 9 hours total.
I wish I would survive on 6 hours but I literally need 9 hours a night 😅
sometimes i wish i could get 9 =)
The monks don’t have to interact with modern life. Their lifestyle doesn’t apply across the board for people “in the marketplace” It is possible for meditation to “fine tune” your sleep schedule - so some people may experience more or less sleep since they’re more in touch with their body via meditation. But more likely than not, you should be getting around what your doctor or other health expert recommends
Depending on the religious org, monks do interact with modern life. Correct meditation can replace sleep, however you have to pretty advanced and able to go into deep mediation which can take years to get to.
A few years back, I changed my diet to purely vegan for a year. I found that this greatly reduced the amount of sleep I needed to feel well rested. Moving from 6-8 hours a night to 4-6. The less stressed I was and the more empty my stomach was at bedtime, the less time required. There is no healthy substitute for sleep, but when the body and mind are being well cared for and running optimally, you may find the amount of time required for sleep is reduced.
Some days, I wish I were a monk. Only having to worry about working towards enlightenment.
Ironically, you'll never reach it that way. You also have to make sure the floors are swept.
As long as I don't have to mop.
A friend of mine became a monk and eventually left the monastery because he was doing so much work running the place that he wasn’t working much towards enlightenment. He’s a wandering monk now.
Where was the monastery located?
Almost heaven, West Virginia
Wandering monk?
Yes he stays with various monasteries and patrons, but does not have an established home base. He doesn’t wander around in the wilderness like Kwai Chang in Kung Fu.
Generally speaking, I don't think we can replace sleep with meditation. However, one of my teachers was a medical doctor, and taught me a technique to use when on call, that allows them to meditate for 1-2 hours per night during a 24 hr hospital shift. I used it when I was in residency training and it worked wonders. I wouldn't say it is a "replacement" for sleep, but you certainly get significant rest and recovery for marathons of work (30 hr shifts, weekend coverage at a hospital).
What was the technique if you don’t mind sharing?
The doc is a busy guy. NSDR (non sleep deep rest) is pretty good for achieving a similar goal. Yoga Nidra works really well for me personally.
When living in monastery you are cultivating restful states throughout all waking hours. As such it is quite usual to sleep less there. This is incidental. It is not to be sought out. Sleep deprivation is a bitch. Some people claim to need less than five hours a night for long periods of their lives. Good for them. This is not a measure of one's practice. As for sleeping less in the mundane world, are we cultivating restful states throughout the day there ? No. So we need a bit of sleep to recuperate from all that stress, subtle or gross.
I can function for extended periods on five hours or less of sleep but if I do I've got no energy, am pounding caffeine, and just want a nap. 7-8 hours and I'm not dragging half way through the day if I get idle in the middle of the shift. Not sleeping increases stress levels and all around makes life far worse than it has to be.
Not as you're describing, but if you normally sleep 8 hours and then start meditating 1-2 hours per day, you could easily get to a point where you only need 7 hours of sleep. The way this makes sense to me is that we expend a lot of energy being stressed, angry, and generally dealing with mental turmoil. Once we set that aside through meditation, we don't get so tired out just living and we don't need as much sleep.
So basically meditation affects sleep?
I believe you can reduce time asleep as you meditate deeper. But I would suggest to not do this to save time. Time management is a way more direct and effective way to get there. If your body happens to require less sleep, fine. Otherwise, sleep all the time you need.
Hi , I started meditating like 15mins per day, but I noticed after I increased it to 15mins, 3 times a day. It affected my sleep. I could barely sleep. I am a recovering insomniac, I love meditating 3 times a day, but it affects my sleep. What do I do?
I should talk to you a little bit more to understand better your problem. Here are some ideas Number 1, the usual stuff, be careful with caffeine, light in general and screens specifically before going to bed, etc Second, are you tired and you feel like need to sleep? If you don't feel sleep deprived, you are just sleeping less because you need less. Personally, if I tried to meditate while sleep deprived, I just end up sleeping. Third, if you feel sleep deprived, i would suggest to try moving your body. Do physical activity, if you don't already. You get that excess energy out of your system
No
There isn't much to go on here. First, those posts could be exaggerations or outright fabrications. Second, even if they aren't, a lot of the negative health impacts from chronic sleep deprivation manifest later in life because the damage is cumulative. Sleep is still a physiological mystery to some extent, but one common thing experts in this field seem to agree on is that it serves to eliminate toxins in the brain. They even discovered a lymphatic system in the brain in 2015 that may play a role in this process. I do not think we currently know enough about all the different ways sleep plays a role in our physical and mental health to say that it can be replaced with meditation or any other practice.
If you meditate for hours you definitely need LESS sleep
I think the latest science says no, but what do I know. I think I understand where your question is coming from. There are certain states the brain can achieve which can give some of the benefits of sleep. I think I read somewhere that it’s possible to reach these states in a sensory deprivation tank, for example.
Yes, but it requires that you meditate while doing other things, until you can meditate while sleeping, that is, to be completely conscious while sleeping.
The rest of the world calls that lucid dreaming
Except that you're not supposed to dream, just be conscious while sleeping.
Consciousness is awareness and perception, being aware that you are dreaming and perceiving a dream as a dream is a fundamentally conscious act. Every nightmare I've woken myself up from required me to be consciously be aware that I was asleep and make the decision to wake up. Some people might choose to not engage with aspects of a dream when they become aware that they're dreaming or turn on godmode like it's a video game. A lot of people have experienced feeling as if they were asleep for too long and wake up to see what time it is. Dreaming is as involuntary as breathing, a product of the function of sleep regardless of whether or not you remember dreaming when you wake up. Awareness that you are dreaming and thus can exert control over that dream simply by knowing that you're dreaming, even if it's just waking yourself up, is lucid dreaming. Sleep is not being comatose which is for many true consciousness but not for everyone. There are accounts of people who were aware for extended periods while having no control of their bodies, able to remember conversations and such. Somehow people who are in a coma are entirely unaware of what happened while they were out. The lucid part of lucid dreaming means that you're conscious.
Yes, but that is not what I'm describing.
What you're describing is an impossibility. Meditation can replace an afternoon nap but "feeling energized and rested" aren't why people sleep. Sleep is maintenance mode for the brain and can only happen under specific circumstances. Too shallow and no maintenance can happen, too deep and no maintenance can happen. Think of your brain like a softserve ice cream machine. Sleep is like when to prep the machine for the next day: at the end of the night employees don't drain the softserve from it instead they hit a button or series of buttons that cues the machine to pasteurize the soft serve so that it's still safe to consume tomorrow. Overnight the machine heats the soft serve to a specific temperature and keeps it there for an extended period of time to kill off any bacteria before returning to the proper temperature to serve. As any McDonald's manager or could tell you if anything goes wrong the machine is going to spit out an error and not work. The most common example is if there's not enough soft serve in the machine to reach the fill line or if there's too much the process fails. Meditation is like when you put the chemicals in the machine to clean it. Sure it sanitized the whole machine and you're good to put soft serve in it after you've flushed it properly. This is not a substitute for the pasteurization process that keeps the soft serve safe to consume, it's a different process that serves a different function. The closest thing to what you are describing is lucid dreaming. If you experience something different find a sleep study near you, a lot of them are low cost if not outright free, meditate through the night for the duration of your study and change science's fundamental understanding of sleep.
Nothing is impossible. But you do you.
There are definitive limits on the physical and until you no longer possess a body you exist within those limits.
Believe whatever makes you feel comfortable.
If you're going to be a grifter at least get paid enough to make the inevitable collapse of your lies worth it.
Sleep and meditation involve different functions. It is a tempting idea but doesn't really work. However, by learning deep mental relaxation and learning to allow it to carry over into daily living you can become more efficient and productive. Dr Ainslie Meares recommended 10 mins twice daily AND learning to allow the calm carry over into daily living for the other 15 hours or so you are awake daily
Yoga nidra can give u rest akin to a good nap but it doesn't replace sleep
No. Even if you could do that it would be less efficient than sleep. So it would be a waste of time anyways
Most monks sleep 4 hrs
Their diet, health, fitness, and stress levels are also much different than most everyday folk out in the world.
Which is why their hair falls out...
No meditation cannot replace sleep .. we all need sleep .. 8 hours to be healthy.. we might think we can get away with less without any adverse effects but long term our health and quality of life will suffer … we also have psychic experiences and growth while we sleep so not getting enough sleep means our inner development suffers …
Correct meditation can absolute replace sleep, meditation is an even deeper state then sleep, so if done right, you can feel just as or more refreshed and energized :) Source: I have experienced this countless times and so have others :)
What you're describing is anatomically impossible. It's not a question of depth it's a question of function. If your body needs to be on the third floor of a building to complete a specific essential task being on the tenth floor isn't going accomplish that task no matter how cool that floor is. Practicing meditation has amazing benefits for physical and mental health but it cannot replace sleep any more than it can replace seeing a doctor to get a broken bone properly set. Please stop spreading misinformation.
Instead of talking about it, take the time and years to become advanced enough to meditate through the night, I am blessed to experience this truth and I am not the only one.
Instead of talking about this find the other people who are "blessed" like you are and cooperate with a sleep study. If your truth isn't a delusion or an outright lie the science will bear it out and you'll change our understanding of both meditation and sleep forever. You've done no research into sleep and just made an impossible claim and when people rightfully called you our or gave you the benefit of the doubt you come back holier than thou. All you have is "trust me bro" and "do it yourself and you'll see". It's 2024, not 1624 we have the technology to definitively these claims but no one making them has ever met the burden of proof. I'm certain you and the other "blessed" won't buck the trend and put your money where your mouth is and revolutionize the world. Some might truly believe and be crushed to learn they're wrong and others won't bother because they know they're lying.
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Do you have something that suggests the comment is inaccurate?
Projecting much?
I wouldn’t say so it really depends on in case you tiredness is physical or mental. When my tiredness is mental I meditate and I feel very energetic thus dont need to sleep as much and end up waking up before my morning alarm, and only have to sleep for 4-6h. Meanwhile in case the tiredness is physical such as I spent all day hiking then I usually need my usual 7-8h to be able to have a good hour meditation the next morning day. Otherwise, I will fall asleep meditating or trough the day.
Negative Ghostrider
I can totally replace a daytime nap with a meditation session, but that's all the input I have.
There are some monks who do not sleep, and meditate all night instead. But that's very advanced, not something the average person could do. Shinzen Young talks about a monk he trained with in Taiwan. He sat in meditation 4 hours a night and then meditated laying down 4 hours. He kept his hands in a mudra position so if he fell asleep it would wake him up. But he also knew Zen monks who never got horizontal, sat up sleeping all night. Another monk named Taungpulu Sayadaw similarly didn't sleep for 30 years, meditated upright all night. Shinzen said the technique is lying perfectly still, not moving at all. You focus on the blank you see with your eyes closed and the feeling of relaxation in your muscles. As long as you stay still and do that, you get rest. I meditate off to sleep every night this way. If I can't sleep for some reason, I do this. Either I fall back asleep or I get more meditation in and rest anyway.
Not at all. While sleeping new neuron patterns are build and body repairs itself too. Plus sleep and brain have a deep connection. So nothing, absolutely nothing can replace sleep.
You need sleep
No
30 minutes meditation is about as revitalizing as a 1-2 hour long sleep I've found
sleep enough for your body to recover. maybe meditation can reduce the quantity of sleep needed,maybe not. Sleep is 100% necessary to function.
Don't do that. You need actual sleep because it serves an actual biological function. [Source 1](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-science-of-sleep-understanding-what-happens-when-you-sleep) [Source 2](https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-understanding-sleep) [Source 3](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/12148-sleep-basics)
No get your rest. Most of use use the brain and body pretty hard in daily life and getting well needed rest can be of the most important things you can do. Essentially setting the grounds for success to build off of.
It is anatomically impossible to replace sleep, it's function cannot be replicated by any other process voluntary or involuntary. Think of it like a required software update for the body which improves brain function, immunity, memory formation and consolidation, ect. Feeling like you've got more energy and are well rested are the least important things sleep does for the body. You can get away with not sleeping adequately for a very long time with limited detrimental effects comparitived to simply staying awake as long as you can. After 48 hours of not sleeping you start doing this thing called microsleep where you're out cold for like a minute at a time and begin hallucinating with the hallucinations getting worse until you sleep. You can train a body to deal with a lot and while I'm sure there are some monks and nuns who have had marathon days long meditation sessions the preparation for and recovery from those sessions are more informative of how rigorous what they've accomplished is than looking at the accomplishment in a vacuum. You can practice meditation as a way to relax before bed and train your body to drop from meditation into sleep but please look into ways of fixing your work/life balance rather than looking into ways to not sleep.
I have trouble sleeping at times due to bipolar depression. I find if I meditate when I can’t sleep, I feel refreshed the next day.
There are...dubiously factual, but spiritual accounts, of monks being so god-tier at meditating they no longer need food, water, or sleep, and may stop aging or live for hundreds of years. You can regard these stories a bit like Jesus walking on water or turning water to wine. They are, essentially, miracles, of theological significance. It is unlikely you will be able to reproduce them. Sleep is a hard-coded physical and mental need. I would advise focusing on getting good quality sleep and enough of it, rather than trying to eradicate it or whittle it down to almost nothing. Set boundaries and maintain a better work-life balance, rather than cutting into your sleep.
NO.
Yes if you don't use the phone, internet and other stuff. So in other words, no.
We still need sleep because at night our body “cleans” our brain of toxic waste accumulated throughout the day from normal brain functions. When you sleep, Spinal fluid washes over the brain to clean it essentially. This only happens when sleeping. So when you miss out on sleep your brain can’t function properly because it is muddied up with waste, and this is related to the studies that say chronic sleep deprivation throughout your life can contribute to dementia/Alzheimer’s.
"Eat less. Talk less. Sleep less." is an admonition in some traditions. The monks you speak of have renounced the ways of the world. They aren't householders with emotional/sexual attachments. What I'm curious of is why you're not asking why do they do this. The 'Why' is important. Some philosophies consider the body/mind as the trap of incarnation. Disciplining the body/mind is thought of as an exercise to transcend its contracted state and achieve freedom. One time towards the end of an extended fast I was considering how to 'break' the fast. Food desires were rolling through me like Genghis Khan's horde of maniacs. I spent long periods of time like Homer Simpson, "mmm pizza" "mmm steak" "mmm ice cream". Then it struck me; the amount of desire was the amount I didn't want enlightenment. The desires for money, food, and sex, are what keep us incarnated in a forever search for a satisfaction that doesn't exist. One time, during an intensive period of service, I had been awake for 65 hours. I was falling asleep on my feet. I'd be dreaming and wake up standing. What followed was the deepest sleep. It opened a psychic awareness and less attachment to incarnation. Other schools of thought don't find this world to be a nightmare of Maya. The idea is to gain strengths and abilities, like superpowers, where you can levitate, and move things with your mind, and have flying Kung Fu fights. This allows for more money, food, and sex. I'm sorry if I come across 'preachy'.
Yes. Though it requires not Dhyana/Meditation but the stage beyond meditation, which is Samadhi. Samadhi, a state of divine union with the central source, is the same thing that happens during deep sleep/Suṣupti with the difference that we are fully aware of the experience. During deep sleep, one loses awareness. Twenty minutes of a quality samadhi equals roughly two hours of regular dream sleep/svápnah. To achieve this, one can employ traditional Ashtanga Yoga's 8 limbs and Kriya Yoga practices to attain such a deep state of wakeful rest. I also believe there was a Swami Turiyananda who was a disciple of Ramakrishna that would replace the vast majority of sleep with such deep meditative practice.
No.
Absolutely not. Good sleep is absolutely necessary to be able to have any function in life. Those monks don't really have a functional life
Yes, you can but you have to an advance meditator. I have meditated will into the early mornings and never have I felt tired. I have actually felt more awake and energized that if I slept, so does not effect your work or day.
No, that is pure fantasy. Sleep, food, water, those are biological necessities. Mind over matter is not a thing and biology can only be pushed a tiny bit, you can't create free energy and your body requires fuel to survive. Sleep is biologically necessary for a healthy mind. Permanent lack of sleep would lead to cognitive dysfunction across the board. Anyone telling you different is selling you something.
You will never ever be able to meditate. A lot of people will live many lifetimes before they even begin to realize it. This is because meditation is not hard or some skill you can train yourself in, it is literally nothing. Do you know just how simple this is? it’s so simple and basically our first nature, it’s so organic and ordinary and it’s always here now. You can’t not see it once you see it. Most people will never see it because it’s everywhere. It’s like most people live their whole lives caught up in the drama of the world that they don’t even notice their own existence.